Trade
Trade is a skill available to the player and NPCs. By default, there is a trade penalty on the items you buy and sell, which is 15% for commodities (i.e. trade goods), and 100% for buying and 80% for selling everything else (Weapons, Armor and Horses). Points in Trade skill will reduce these penalties, thus reducing the difference between purchase and selling prices. The reduce factor is 1% for goods and 5% for "everything else" per skill point. However, the game doesn't let the penalty get reduced below zero, even if you decide to tweak. Since Trade is a party skill, it means that if your character has 10 points in Trade, then you can have a maximum effective skill level of 14 (10+4). Which is worth a 14% reduction for goods and a 70% reduction for weapons, armors and horses on the trade penalty. In any given settlement, there will be the base value assigned to specific goods which can be influenced by a buying price (what you pay), a selling price (what they pay), a market supply modifier (based on local abundance) and the prosperity of the settlement. The trade penalty for goods is symmetrical: with no skill points in Trade, you purchase commodities for 115% of their base value and sell commodities for 85% of their base value, with both getting altered by their market supply modifier. So with a maximum of 14 Trade skill, you can change these to 101% and 99% respectively, giving you an edge in expanding your profit margins. Although keep in mind that exploiting the market supply - even with no skill points - will yield far more profit than simply reducing the penalty you have in trade. Weapons, Armor and Horses however have a bit differently working trade penalty, as it's not quite symmetrical: by default, you purchase them at around 200% of their base value, and sell them at around 20% of their base value. This is before Trade skill comes into play. With a Trade skill of 14, these penalties will become 130% and 90% respectively (70% reduction). This is to ensure that simply looting the corpses of enemies isn't far more profitable than any other way of making money in the game. Trade skill will also affect how long it takes to collect taxes. Gameplay Basic Principle Every city and village in the game will produce several different kinds of goods. Generally, villages only produce "raw material" goods like wool, grapes, or chicken, while cities have the industry to create "finished product" goods like wool cloth or wine. Villages produce raw materials based upon the village prosperity, with more prosperous villages producing more goods. cities, meanwhile, consume raw materials when they produce finished product goods. Producing a unit of wool cloth consumes a unit of wool, and since cities do not produce their own raw materials, they are dependent upon their villages supplying them (and by extension, their peasants not being attacked on the road to the city when they go to trade). Some goods are neither raw materials for other products generated at villages, nor finished products produced from an associated raw material item generated in cities. These goods can be produced either by villages or cities, although it is worth noting that most of these goods are foods only produced in villages. If cities produce these products, they are produced directly at the city itself, and do not require any trade or any villages to produce that item, and production is based solely upon that city's productivity score, bypassing the need for villages for that one type of product. Players can also own a Productive Enterprise at a city, which will produce finished goods from raw materials just like cities will, but where the productivity of the facility is fixed. A player-owned ironworks will turn 2 iron into 2 tools regardless of city productivity, which may be a lot or a little depending on the relative prosperity of the city. The villages attached to castles will send their peasants to the nearest city of their own faction, supplying that city with their raw materials. Villages and cities also consume certain commodities at a given rate. Food items, for example, tend to be consumed fairly quickly and regularly. Raw material items are consumed only in production of finished goods unless they are also food items (like grapes). Some items, like Velvet, are rarely used, so almost no city will actually have shortages of that product. Category:Gameplay